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Author Topic: Wireless restarts  (Read 10349 times)

RobG

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Wireless restarts
« on: May 04, 2009, 02:00:25 PM »

Sorry in advance for being kind of grumpy.   :'(

So, there are a billion reports of problems with Wireless Restart messages, and a billion helpful suggestions.  What I'd love to know, is whether it's all voodoo or not.  I'm running V4 and 1.21 right now.  I have the exact same problem people have been reporting for quite some time - frequent "wireless restarts".  I've tried all of the customer support suggestions (messing with various wireless settings, even changing the port speed on the wired connection), except the last one - upgrade the firmware to 1.31.  I'm hesitating because there's no way back, and there isn't a mention of this problem in the release notes.  If it has a reasonable chance of solving my problem, I'll do it, but I don't want to go through with it if it's unrelated.

I'm a fully accredited geek (BSCEE), so what I'd **love** to know is if there's a D-link engineer out there who can tell me **exactly** what "wireless restart" means.  I see a ton of people who seem to think it's related to signal interference, various settings, hardware failure, firmware versions (even though I see these reports all the way back to 1.1)  I'm not interested in hearing from helpful people who "think" they know or "assume" it's caused by X, Y, or Z, or "suggest" I try any one of a hundred different things.  I want to hear from someone who knows what generates this message, because right now I feel like I'm spinning with support folks who understand less about this than I do.

Any D-Link product engineers out there who can tell me what creates a "wireless restart" message so I can narrow the troubleshooting?

Thanks,
Rob
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Lycan

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #1 on: May 04, 2009, 02:18:17 PM »

Wireless restart itself means that the router as restarted the AP portion of the router. This can be caused by a number of things including wireless interference.

The AP restarts when it changes channels also.
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RobG

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #2 on: May 04, 2009, 06:03:09 PM »

You say that with some authority, so I'll bite.  I remain a bit skeptical, since by definition it's the router deciding to restart rather than an individual client dropping out, and since it's still doing it even though auto switching is turned off.  It seeems a little silly to restart the entire wireless service if its going to run on the same danged channel, but.....  I don't know if you have any pull with the product guys, but it would be nice to have a little more specific message - if it detects interference, maybe it could say that...

Question 1: In your opinion, is there any reason to believe that 1.31 will behave differently than 1.21 with regards to wireless restarts, given that there's no mention in the release notes?  The notes themselves are pretty thin, so I could believe there are a number of additional issues and things that got tweaked, but I was hoping to be a bit more scientific about this than the current "try it and see" approach, especially when there's no way to go back.

Question 2: Assuming it is being caused by interference, is there a more scientific way to narrow down the problem?  I've tried temporarily moving the router so it's in the middle of the floor, I've tried playing with the antenna orientation, and obviously support had me switch off channel switching.  It seems like short of turning off every piece of equipment I own one by one, not to mention equipment owned by my neighbors, then trying every possible physical location for the router, I don't know how to tell what the channel setting or physical placement should be.  I've had many, many B/G routers over the years and never had a problem.  Perhaps none of them were smart enough to sense interference before, perhaps it is related to the new location which is more central in my house.  Regardless, it seems like a daunting task to narrow this down without any clue as to whether interference is even the issue!
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davevt31

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #3 on: May 04, 2009, 06:26:31 PM »

First thing to try is use your wireless computer to check for neighbors that are broadcasting wireless signals.  See what channels they are using and avoid using that channel on your router.  Also some wireless phones operate on the 2.4 frequency so they can cause problems too.
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ttmcmurry

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #4 on: May 05, 2009, 09:01:43 PM »

Download inSSIDer

Fire it up and identify the wireless channel with the least amount of activity:  1, 6, or 11.

Log into your 655 and uncheck channel scan in your wireless network setup.  Then choose the wireless channel from above.  Restart the 655.

If the wireless reboots stop, then you've found your culprit.  This is but one possible solution.
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wannaplay

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #5 on: May 06, 2009, 06:37:45 AM »

ttmcmurry i've got to thank you greatly for this app! It has solved all the problems that i was having with my wireless. I went through all the channels and i could clearly see which was best for my situation. I've finally found out which channel was best for me. This should be made a sticky, it could help loads others that have no idea which channel is best for them.

Thank you so much! :)
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darkfiber61

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #6 on: May 06, 2009, 04:08:29 PM »

Download inSSIDer

Fire it up and identify the wireless channel with the least amount of activity:  1, 6, or 11.

Log into your 655 and uncheck channel scan in your wireless network setup.  Then choose the wireless channel from above.  Restart the 655.

If the wireless reboots stop, then you've found your culprit.  This is but one possible solution.

I have to give thanks as well.  I was also having problems with wireless restarts.  I picked the channel that show up on the search and bam!  steady 300mpbs wireless.   So far no reboots at all, thanks again.
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ttmcmurry

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #7 on: May 06, 2009, 09:31:04 PM »

Glad to help.  I do it for the +1s     8)
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poker

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #8 on: May 18, 2009, 10:26:36 AM »

There is another thread about this:
http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3086.0
I been combating this for a long time now.
There is no way, absolute no way to solve it without doing something expensive.
Read on page 6 and forward on the link above.
So many people that is frustrated over DLINK products, and the DIR655 seems to be a headache-price-winner.
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EddieZ

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #9 on: May 18, 2009, 11:24:48 AM »

There is another thread about this:
http://forums.dlink.com/index.php?topic=3086.0
I been combating this for a long time now.
There is no way, absolute no way to solve it without doing something expensive.
Read on page 6 and forward on the link above.
So many people that is frustrated over DLINK products, and the DIR655 seems to be a headache-price-winner.

You gotta admit that you had a good working set up for a couple of months. So I'm surprised to see your comments... ???
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DIR-655 H/W: A2 FW: 1.33

ttmcmurry

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Re: Wireless restarts
« Reply #10 on: May 18, 2009, 03:36:27 PM »

Never ceases to amaze me that people will rant and rave about a product, claim to know so much about networking or computers, but fail to bring the community enough information to help diagnose the problem.

Seriously, a wireshark packet capture would have been really nice to have if this issue had been going on since November 30, 2008.  There are enough people on this board alone who could make sense of it.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2009, 03:41:07 PM by ttmcmurry »
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